Dance Lodges on the Great Plains

[Mark J Awakuni-Swetland]

The University of Nebraska Press is going to reprint my 2001 Routledge 
monograph on the Omaha Dance Lodges. Finally it will be in an afordable 
paperback.

This provides me an opportunity to attach an afterword that begins a 
discussion about these circular structures among other Great Plains tribes 
and their relation (or not) to the Omaha Dance and/or Hethushka. I want to 
gather together some of the current thinking on these structures and 
offers some speculations.

I have looked at the SiouanList archives related to the Grass Dance and 
Hethushka.

I recall that Loretta Fowler mentions the Omaha Dance among the Arapahoe, 
and circular structures used for social events among the Gros Ventre in 
her books.

I have references to the Lakota at Pine Ridge doing the "Omaha Dance" in 
circular structures built for that purpose in the late 1800s. I am aware 
of circular lodges among the Osage and Pawnee in Oklahoma, but with little 
details about their construction and uses.

It has been suggested that investing in these structures seems to be an 
early Reservation phenomenon since folks were no longer nomadic and 
restrained from other cultural practices.

Are you aware of any other occurences of such structures?

Thank you for considering this inquiry,

Regards,

Mark Awakuni-Swetland

mawakuni-swetland2 at unl.edu
Office: 402-472-3455
FAX: 402-472-9642

oNska abthiN!
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